Pan-Cancer Analysis Reveals Expressional Correlations between Forkhead Box Family Members

Abstract

The forkhead box (FOX) transcription factor protein family is responsible for a wide range of biological activities, especially in development and cell differentiation. The highly conserved gene family span from worms to mammals, and has at least 41 members in the human genome. By analyzing data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), this study examined the correlation of expression between each human FOX members in 31 types of cancer cells in the form of heatmaps and scatterplots. The primary goal was to identify significant correlations between certain FOX family members and different types of cancers. The study identified a close expressional correlation between FOXC2 and FOXL1 genes, which exists within a cluster at 16q24.1. Other significant relations in particular types of tumor tissues were also noted.